


Love Must Have Assurance

by Lucky107



Series: The Wanderer [10]
Category: Fallout 3
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mild Sexual Content, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 08:33:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7677424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky107/pseuds/Lucky107
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Butch wears his hurt like a badge of honor, allowing it to make his heart as calloused as his skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Must Have Assurance

**Author's Note:**

> Little Things You Do - Sam Cooke - 1959

"Why you always gotta talk about takin' their clothes off?"  Butch asks of his companion, who just made his latest in a long string of sexually-charged remarks towards a female classmate.  And it's the latest in a long string of sexually-charged remarks that goes right over Butch's head.

Wally just look incredulous, as if the answer is obvious, and he insists, "It makes you a _man_ , man."

Paul all but abandons the conversation, feigning a need to stretch his legs before the lecture resumes, and he disappears from the classroom in haste.  Butch wishes he could do the same, but he instigated this conversation.  He has an obligation to see it through.  "Says who?  You?"

"No, man - my brother!  He says—"

But Butch is young for sixteen and he has a mind for fighting, not fucking.  Her harbors years of unexpressed frustrations; a void in his childhood where a father should have been and all the scars that mar his skin from his mother's particularly bad nights.  Butch wears his hurt like a badge of honor, allowing it to make it heart as calloused as his skin.

That's something Wally will never understand because, to Wally, the Tunnel Snakes are just an image.  People fear Butch - they fear the raw destruction personified in a boy's body - and, growing up, Wally wanted people to fear him, too.  But now Stevie Mack is going around filling Wally's head with tales of his latest female conquests and Wally wants that, too.  But Wally wants to be feared and idolized without any of the complicated strings attached.

So Butch just sort of nods along like he understands, but he'll never understand Wally Mack.

Not really.

\- - -

Trinnie's lying on the old cot, legs spread without an ounce of shame after he's plied her with alcohol at the Muddy Rudder, and she thumbs the zipper of her dress.  Slowly, teasingly, she exposes the tender skin of her plump, young chest; she's just a kid, but Butch's heart still skips a beat when she says, "Cold feet, honey?  Don't be shy."

But Trinnie's not a kid anymore, not after the things she's seen— _things she's done_ —in the wasteland to bring her this far.

In retrospect, Butch isn't much of a kid anymore, either.

He's seen things— _done things_ —that leave him lying awake at night.  Things that have left their scars, both inside and out, that will continue to plague his conscience until the day he dies, and somehow taking a willing woman is the uncharted territory that leaves him paralyzed.  Even when Trinne spreads herself out for him like this, Butch can't do it.

And in the back of his mind, he hears Wally's voice: _it makes you a_ man _, man_.

Butch wipes his sweaty palms on his Vault suit, trying to ease his nerves, but the only choked word he can manage is 'sorry' before he storms out of the room, out of the Muddy Rudder.  He flexes his hands anxiously at his sides and his jaw's so rigid it hurts, but he doesn't stop to breathe until he finds himself on the flight deck.

He holds on so tightly to the rusty steel railing that his nails bite into the heels of his hands.  _Fuck Wally_ , he resolves, though it's going to take a lot more than that to calm his racing heart.

He—

"Butch?"

Turning slowly, his legs become weak at the sound of his name on her voice.

Cassidy is a mess of bruises and filth, blood caked into her matted hair, and she's cradling her left arm against her chest.  It's been bandaged from the fingers to the elbow to hold together an assortment of unseen damage, but she offers him that signature lopsided smile and Butch rushes to meet her.

She doesn't move, but she doesn't have to - his hug lifts her right up off her feet and he spins her once, twice, three times before her boots return to the rusty flight deck.

But he doesn't let her go.

Instead, Butch sinks his fingers deep into Cassidy's filthy dark hair and brings his forehead to rest against hers.  He never wanted to let her see him cry, not after all the years he spent being strong in front of her, but he can't contain the relief that comes with seeing her— _feeling her_ —alive in his arms.  "I... I thought I lost you—"

"I'm not _that_ easy to get rid of," she assures him, securing her good arm around his neck and shoulders to return his embrace.

Holding Cassidy tighter than he's ever held anyone, Butch realises that Wally Mack was wrong - about everything.


End file.
